Transcriptomic analysis of the porcine endometrium during early pregnancy and the estrous cycle

Abstract

The goal of this study was to describe the alterations in the transcriptome of the endometrium in pigs during the beginning of implantation (days 15-16 of pregnancy) compared to cyclic pigs during the onset of luteolysis (days 15-16 of the estrous cycle). The global expression of genes in porcine gravid and non-gravid endometria was investigated using the Porcine (V2) Two-color gene expression microarray, 4 × 44 (Agilent, USA). Analysis of the microarray data showed that, of 589 accurately annotated genes, the expression of 266 genes was up-regulated and expression of 323 was down-regulated in the endometrium harvested during early pregnancy compared with the endometrium during the estrous cycle. In pregnant pigs, genes with the most significantly altered expression were involved in the following biological processes: the metabolic process, cellular process, cell communication, immune system process, developmental process, cell adhesion, antigen processing and presentation, antigen processing and presentation of peptide or polysaccharide antigen via major histocompatibility complex (MHC) class II, immune response, and the polysaccharide metabolic process. In the pregnant endometrium, cell adhesion molecules and steroid hormone biosynthesis pathways were the most significantly enriched biological pathways. Analysis of the interaction network among selected genes showed that androgen receptor (AR) encoding genes interact with genes involved in important processes occurring during early pregnancy. The bioinformatic analysis revealed information about the meaning of differentially expressed genes. The data provided new insight into the dynamic changes of the endometrial gene expression profile during days 15-16 of pregnancy.

Keywords: Endometrium; Estrous cycle; Pigs; Pregnancy; Transcriptomic profile.